Contents

About a month before the Tenth Zenith of Things Tournament, the Jupiter System Union launched Operation Lawnmower to counteract the increasing neonatal survival rate. They succeeded in luring the Stellar Nursery Society away to launch an attack on their base on Szeged. By the time the SNS Guntroll returned it was too late to stop a bombardment by warships, which prevented them from getting close to Szeged to carry out an evacuation. Niz's father Laib, who had stayed behind, loaded the children into storage containers and used his railsuit to launch them at the Guntroll for retrieval. Getz and Koen covered the retrieval and the containers were recovered just before Szeged exploded, killing Laib. Unable to obtain asylum from other asteroid nations and with nowhere else to go, the SNS enrolled in the ZOTT.

On Day 2, Round 1 is the Space Angels against the Guntroll. Alita is alone in the team's locker room agonizing over what to do. She is reluctant to fight, but cannot recover Lou Collins' brain unless she wins. Colonel Payne appears to her and tells her to teach the SNS children despair by crushing their hopes. When she refuses, he tells her that as a slave she must fight until she dies to give herself the illusion of freedom. When Payne claims that her pity is in vain, Alita challenges him, asserting that the children still have a future. The vision in Alita's mind then shifts to over the Onion Frame and Payne asks her if she is trying to change the world and be Spartacus. Back in the locker room, Payne states that if Alita does care, she would have to free all 20,000 brains in the Brain Incubator and not just Lou's. He asserts that all she wants is to escape her guilt and must choose between Lou and the children before fading away.

Alita screams at Payne to go away and sends the door flying. Sechs sees this and tells Alita not to worry. He refuses to tell Elf and Zwölf what is going on with her and leads them onto the arena floor to begin the match.